Domain Name Word Game

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette, and joining us now is the one and only, sui generis, John Chaneski.

Hi, Martha. Hi, Grant. I can remember the early days of the internet when you could score a really simple web address like games.com because there were only three people with computers. I go back that far. Now, of course, a web address is more likely to be complex these days unless you’ve got the do-re-mi to buy just the perfect word. Now, I’ll give you a web address, which is just a single word and a domain. Well, it’s just .com, really. And see if you can figure out what you’d find there, okay?

Oh, so you’re talking about domain redirects, so where the simple ones go to something more complex.

Pretty much, yeah, for some of them. Some of them are exactly what you would think is there, and some of them require a little more thought.

Okay. For example, if you go to space.com, you’ll find news about astronomy. But if you go to time.com, what would you find there?

Think about a magazine.

Yeah, you’d find Time Magazine, exactly. Appropriately, you’ll find the History Channel and all its history at history.com.

But if you go to chemistry.com, what would you find there? Is it a chemistry journal? Sounds like a dating site.

It is an online dating site.

Oh, nice. That’s very good, Martha. Never been there.

I’m going to look up your profile.

Now, though, Northeast.com is an electronics firm in Connecticut, what do you find at Southwest.com?

Airline.

Airline, of course.

Yeah.

Now, don’t be sad if you find nothing of note at downs.com. What can you do at ups.com?

You can send packages.

Send packages.

You can send packages. Ups is ups.com.

Everything.com is a site for an investment company, whatever. It’s what I feel about that.

But everything.com takes you to a site where you can find what specific objects that can be about anything.

Specific objects that can be about anything.

Well, a dictionary is about everything.

I was going to say, or encyclopedias or something.

It’s books.

Books.

Everything.com takes you to the Simon & Schuster website.

Oh, smart.

No kidding.

That’s smart.

Friends.com will take you to some generic site about making friends, hanging out with friends and nothing about Chandler or Monica, but family.com takes you to what squeaky clean entertainment company is it? ABC? Even more Disney? It’s Disney, yeah, Disney owns family.com.

Finally, maybe you think this is fun. Concentration.com takes you to a company that makes machines that measure density.

But what kind of operation would you find at operation.com?

It’s not the board game, is it?

Or the company that makes the board?

It is the company that makes the board games.

It’s Hasbro. You can find board games at operation.com.

Nice. Well, rock and roll, you guys. It’s time for me to head out. You guys did really well on that quiz. I’ll talk to you next week.

Party on, John. Party on, Martha. Thanks, John.

Party on. Well, you know, this show is about puzzles and words and language and linguistics, slang, new words, things that your family says that you think are weird but you want to find out more about, call us about that, 877-929-9673.

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